Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey (Translator), 2.373

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[373] 373a For there are some, it appears, who will not be contented with this sort of fare or with this way of life; but couches will have to be added thereto and tables and other furniture, yes, and relishes and myrrh and incense and girls¹ and cakes—all sorts of all of them. And the requirements we first mentioned, houses and garments and shoes, will no longer be confined to necessities,² but we must set painting to work and embroidery, and procure gold and ivory and similar adornments, must we not? 373b Yes, he said. Then we shall have to enlarge the city again. For that healthy state is no longer sufficient, but we must proceed to swell out its bulk and fill it up with a multitude of things that exceed the requirements of necessity in states, as, for example, the entire class of huntsmen, and the imitators,³ many of them occupied with figures and colors and many with music—the poets and their assistants, rhapsodists, actors, chorus-dancers, contractors⁴—and 373c the manufacturers of all kinds of articles, especially those that have to do with women’s adornment. And so we shall also want more servitors. Don’t you think that we shall need tutors, nurses wet⁵ and dry, beauty-shop ladies, barbers⁶ and yet again cooks and chefs? And we shall have need, further, of swineherds; there were none of these creatures⁷ in our former city, for we had no need of them, but in this city there will be this further need; and we shall also require other cattle in great numbers if they are to be eaten, 373d shall we not? Yes. Doctors, too, are something whose services⁸ we shall be much more likely to require if we live thus than as before? Much.
And the territory, I presume, that was then sufficient to feed the then population, from being adequate will become too small. Is that so or not? It is. Then we shall have to cut out a cantle⁹ of our neighbor’s land if we are to have enough for pasture and ploughing, and they in turn of ours if they too abandon themselves to the unlimited¹⁰ acquisition of wealth, 373e disregarding the limit set by our necessary wants. Inevitably, Socrates. We shall go to war¹¹ as the next step, Glaucon—or what will happen? What you say, he said. And we are not yet to speak, said I, of any evil or good effect of war, but only to affirm that we have further¹² discovered the origin of war, namely, from those things from which¹³ the greatest disasters, public and private, come to states when they come. Certainly.

Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

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Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 2.373 focus

[373] 373a ταῦτα γὰρ δή τισιν, ὡς δοκεῖ, οὐκ ἐξαρκέσει, οὐδὲ αὕτη ἡ δίαιτα, ἀλλὰ κλῖναί τε προσέσονται καὶ τράπεζαι καὶ τἆλλα σκεύη, καὶ ὄψα δὴ καὶ μύρα καὶ θυμιάματα καὶ ἑταῖραι καὶ πέμματα, καὶ ἕκαστα τούτων παντοδαπά. καὶ δὴ καὶ ἃ τὸ πρῶτον ἐλέγομεν οὐκέτι τἀναγκαῖα θετέον, οἰκίας τε καὶ ἱμάτια καὶ ὑποδήματα, ἀλλὰ τήν τε ζωγραφίαν κινητέον καὶ τὴν ποικιλίαν, καὶ χρυσὸν καὶ ἐλέφαντα καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα κτητέον. ἦ γάρ; 373b
ναί, ἔφη.
οὐκοῦν μείζονά τε αὖ τὴν πόλιν δεῖ ποιεῖν· ἐκείνη γὰρ ἡ ὑγιεινὴ οὐκέτι ἱκανή, ἀλλʼ ἤδη ὄγκου ἐμπληστέα καὶ πλήθους, ἃ οὐκέτι τοῦ ἀναγκαίου ἕνεκά ἐστιν ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν, οἷον οἵ τε θηρευταὶ πάντες οἵ τε μιμηταί, πολλοὶ μὲν οἱ περὶ τὰ σχήματά τε καὶ χρώματα, πολλοὶ δὲ οἱ περὶ μουσικήν, ποιηταί τε καὶ τούτων ὑπηρέται, ῥαψῳδοί, ὑποκριταί, χορευταί, ἐργολάβοι, σκευῶν τε παντοδαπῶν δημιουργοί, τῶν τε ἄλλων 373c καὶ τῶν περὶ τὸν γυναικεῖον κόσμον. καὶ δὴ καὶ διακόνων πλειόνων δεησόμεθα· ἢ οὐ δοκεῖ δεήσειν παιδαγωγῶν, τιτθῶν, τροφῶν, κομμωτριῶν, κουρέων, καὶ αὖ ὀψοποιῶν τε καὶ μαγείρων; ἔτι δὲ καὶ συβωτῶν προσδεησόμεθα· τοῦτο γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ προτέρᾳ πόλει οὐκ ἐνῆν—ἔδει γὰρ οὐδέν—ἐν δὲ ταύτῃ καὶ τούτου προσδεήσει. δεήσει δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων βοσκημάτων παμπόλλων, εἴ τις αὐτὰ ἔδεται· ἦ γάρ;
πῶς γὰρ οὔ; 373d
οὐκοῦν καὶ ἰατρῶν ἐν χρείαις ἐσόμεθα πολὺ μᾶλλον οὕτω διαιτώμενοι ἢ ὡς τὸ πρότερον;
πολύ γε.
καὶ ἡ χώρα γέ που, ἡ τότε ἱκανὴ τρέφειν τοὺς τότε, σμικρὰ δὴ ἐξ ἱκανῆς ἔσται. ἢ πῶς λέγομεν;
οὕτως, ἔφη.
οὐκοῦν τῆς τῶν πλησίον χώρας ἡμῖν ἀποτμητέον, εἰ μέλλομεν ἱκανὴν ἕξειν νέμειν τε καὶ ἀροῦν, καὶ ἐκείνοις αὖ τῆς ἡμετέρας, ἐὰν καὶ ἐκεῖνοι ἀφῶσιν αὑτοὺς ἐπὶ χρημάτων κτῆσιν ἄπειρον, ὑπερβάντες τὸν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ὅρον; 373e
πολλὴ ἀνάγκη, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες.
πολεμήσομεν δὴ τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο, ὦ Γλαύκων; ἢ πῶς ἔσται;
οὕτως, ἔφη.
καὶ μηδέν γέ πω λέγωμεν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, μήτʼ εἴ τι κακὸν μήτʼ εἰ ἀγαθὸν ὁ πόλεμος ἐργάζεται, ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον μόνον, ὅτι πολέμου αὖ γένεσιν ηὑρήκαμεν, ἐξ ὧν μάλιστα ταῖς πόλεσιν καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ κακὰ γίγνεται, ὅταν γίγνηται.
πάνυ μὲν οὖν.

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. On flute-girls as the accompaniment of a banquet Cf. Symposium 176 E, Aristophanes Ach. 1090-1092, Catullus 13. 4. But apart from this, the sudden mention of an incongruous item in a list is a device of Aristophanic humor which even the philosophic Emerson did not disdain:

The love of little maids and berries.

2. τὰ ἁναγκαῖα predicatively, in the measure prescribed by necessity. Cf. 369 D the indispensable minimum of a city. The historical order is: (1) arts of necessity, (2) arts of pleasure and luxury, (3) disinterested science. Cf. Critias 110 A, Aristotle Met. 981 b 20.

3. θηρευταί and μιμηταί are generalized Platonic categories, including much not ordinarily signified by the words. For a list of such Platonic generalizations Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, note 500.

4. Contractors generally, and especially theatrical managers.

5. The mothers of the idyllic state nursed their own children, but in the ideal state the wives of the guardians are relieved of this burden by special provision. Cf. 460 D.

6. The rhetoricians of the empire liked to repeat that no barber was known at Rome in the first 200 or 300 years of the city.

7. Illogical idiom referring to the swine. Cf. 598 C.

8. χρείαις: Greek idiom could use either singular or plural. Cf. 410 A; Phaedo 87 C; Laws 630 E. The plural here avoids hiatus.

9. Cf. Isocrates iii. 34.

10. Cf. 591 D. Natural desires are limited. Luxury and unnatural forms of wealth are limitless, as the Greek moralists repeat from Solon down.

11. The unnecessary desires are the ultimate causes of wars. Phaedo 66 C. The simple life once abandoned, war is inevitable. My lord, said St. Francis to the Bishop of Assisi , if we possessed property we should have need of arms for its defense (Sabatier, p. 81). Similarly that very dissimilar thinker, Mandeville. Cf. on 372 C. Plato recognizes the struggle for existence (Spencer, Data of Ethics, 6), and the bellum omnium contra omnes, Laws 625 E. Cf. Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, i, 2:

The Republic of Plato seems in many respects divergent from the reality. And yet he contemplates war as a permanent, unalterable fact to be provided for in the ideal state.

Spencer on the contrary contemplates a completely evolved society in which the ethics of militarism will disappear.

12. i.e. as well as the genesis of society. 369 B.

13. ἐξ ὧν: i.e. ἐκ τούτων ἐξ ὧν, namely the appetites and the love of money.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

καὶ ὄψα δή . For δή see 367 C note

ἑταῖραι . G. W. Nitzsch ( Rhein. Mus. 1857, pp. 471 f.), Richter ( Fl. Jahrb. 1867, p. 141), Madvig, and Stallbaum take offence at the juxtaposition of ἑταῖραι and πέμματα and suggest respectively ἀθῆραι (apparently an error for ἀθάραι, cf. Ar. Plut. 673 ), ἐραῖα (= ἑψήματα in Schol. on 445 C), ἐσχαρῖται ‘panes delicati,’ and ἕτερα (with the following καί deleted),—conjectures which are altogether needless and refute one another. The text is successfully defended by Hug ( Hermes 1876, p. 254), who cites an exact parallel in Ar. Ach. 1090 —1092 κλῖναι, τράπεζαι, προσκεφάλαια, στρώματα, | στέφανοι, μύρον, τραγήμαθ’ , αἱ πόρναι πάρα, | ἄμυλοι πλακοῦντες, σησαμοῦντες, ἴτρια | (varieties of πέμματα). Cf. also Amphis ap. Ath. XIV 642 A οἶνος ἡδύς, ᾠά, σησαμαῖ, | μύρον, στέφανος, αὐλητρίς and infra III 404 D, IX 573 D note From these passages it may fairly be doubted whether Plato's mention of ἑταῖραι is in any way even παρὰ προσδοκίαν (as the Oxford editors suggest): for αὐλητρίδες were almost as common a feature at dessert as the cakes ( πέμματα) etc. which accompany them here: see e.g. Xen. Mem. I 5. 4 , Symp. 2. 1, Pl. Symp. 176 E , Prot. 347 D . Vahlen ( Index Lect. per sem. hib. 1875—6 Berol.) quotes also Catullus'

cenabis bene

si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam

cenam non sine candida puella

et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis

(13. 1 ff.).

καὶ τὴν ποικιλίαν . ποικιλία means variety of colour as e.g. in embroidery: cf. 378 C, III 401 A, Euthyph. 6 C . On the omission in A see Introd. § 5.

χρυσὸν καὶ ἐλέφαντα : with reference to chryselephantine statuary. Note that (according to Plato) the demand for decorative arts does not arise till the physical necessities of man are satisfied. Cf. Nettleship Lectures and Remains, II p. 73.

μείζονά τε αὖ τήν . τέ is ἀνακόλουθον (Hoefer de part. Pl. p. 14): for other instances in the Republic see V 463 D, VII 522 B, IX 575 A. In this passage Richter would change τε αὖ τήν into τοιαύτην, comparing 372 E; but the text is sound, and τοιαύτην would be quite wrong. αὐτὴν τὴν πόλιν (cf. 370 E), conjectured by Heller instead of αὖ τὴν πόλιν, is neat but needless.

πλήθους ἅ : i.e. πλήθους τούτων ἅ, as Ficinus understood the words. Stallbaum's alternative suggestion (that ἅ refers directly to ὄγκου and πλήθους) gives a poor sense. Cf. infra 373 E note

θηρευταὶ πάντες . The addition of πάντες shews that θηρευταί is used in a wide sense, including every variety of fishing as well as hunting: Laws 823 B θήρα γὰρ πάμπολύ τι πρᾶγμά ἐστί, περιειλημμένον ὀνόματι νῦν σχεδὸν ἑνί. πολλὴ μὲν γὰρ ἡ τῶν ἐνύδρων, πολλὴ δὲ ἡ τῶν πτηνῶν, πάμπολυ δὲ καὶ τὸ περὶ τὰ πεζὰ θηρεύματα. In Euthyd. 290 B —D, Soph. 219 E ff., and Laws (l.c.), Plato makes θηρευτική include ‘fishing for men’ e.g. in war, or by Sophists etc. This wider meaning clearly rests upon a Platonic—or rather Socratic (see Xen. Mem. II 6. 29 , quoted by J. and C.)—metaphor, and is not intended here. Cf. Benseler in Fl. Jahrb. 1881, pp. 236 ff. Aristotle on the other hand regards hunting as characteristic of the most primitive society ( Pol. A 8. 1256^{a} 35 ff.), and so too Plato himself in Laws 679 A.

ῥαψῳδοί ‐‐ ἐργολάβοι are the poet's servants. In Athens and elsewhere they formed regular guilds or σύνοδοι τῶν περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον τεχνιτῶν: cf. Arist. Probl. XXX 10. 956^{b} 11 οἱ Διονυσιακοὶ τεχνῖται. The ἐργολάβος contracted with the poet for the performance of his play, acting as a kind of financial agent or middleman between him and the σύνοδος to which he belonged. See Müller Bühnenalterthümer, pp. 392—414.

παιδαγωγῶν ‐‐ κουρέων . We infer that in the ‘healthy’ State fathers were παιδαγωγοί, mothers suckled ( τιτθῶν) and nursed ( τροφῶν) their own children, and the professional hair-dresser was unknown.

συβωτῶν . See on 372 B.

χρείαις . Cobet's χρείᾳ is not, I think, necessary. The plural (for which cf. 369 D al.) refers to the different occasions when we may require the help of doctors.

λέγομεν . λέγωμεν may be right, but the first hand of A was apt to err in these subjunctive forms ( Introd. § 5), and the Indicative is somewhat more natural here: cf. (with Schneider) 377 E ἀλλὰ πῶς δὴ λέγομεν καὶ ποῖα;

πολεμήσομεν . Stallbaum adds δή after πολεμήσομεν with some inferior MSS. The effect of its omission is to lay special stress on the first mention of πόλεμος in πολεμήσομεν, which should be pronounced with emphasis. Cf. IV 432 C, IX 583 C.

πολέμου ‐‐ γένεσιν . War then arises from the acquisition of territory and wealth: cf. Phaed. 66 C διὰ γὰρ τὴν τῶν χρημάτων κτῆσιν πάντες οἱ πόλεμοι ἡμῖν γίγνονται, where war is farther traced to the body and its desires, to satisfy which we seek to multiply our possessions. Cf. Arist. Pol. A 8. 1256^{b} 23 ἡ πολεμικὴ φύσει κτητική πως ἔσται.

ἐξ ὧν ‐‐ γίγνηται defines γένεσιν. War comes ἐξ ὧν i.e. ἐκ τούτων ὧν κτλ. ( ὧν for ἐξ ὧν, according to the usual Greek idiom, cf. Euthyph. 10 C , and III 402 A ἐν ἅπασιν οἷς ἔστι al.), from that which involves both cities and individuals in calamities, viz. from the desire of money. Cf. 373 B note and (for the sentiment Laws 870 A ff. ἡ τῶν χρημάτων τῆς ἀπλήστου καὶ ἀπείρου κτήσεως ἔρωτας μυρίους ἐντίκτουσα δύναμις διὰ φύσιν τε καὶ ἀπαιδευσίαν τὴν κακὴν κτλ. The love of money —so Plato held—is the root of all evil. This explanation is due to Schleiermacher; others (Schneider, Stallbaum, J. and C. as an alternative) refer ἐξ ὧν to war and the like=‘ex cuiusmodi rebus’ (Stallbaum). It is an objection to such a view that it makes Plato say that evils come from War (and the like), directly after he has declined to say anything of the sort ( μηδέν γέ πω — ἐργάζεται). Further, if ὧν referred to war, the sentiment would in itself be a platitude and almost deserve to be expunged from the text, as it is by Herwerden. On the other hand ἐξ ὧν—γίγνηται is on Schleiermacher's view quite consistent with μηδέν γέ πω— <*>ργάζεται, for although war arises from that which harms a State, in itself it may (and does) actually do good. Good in other words may come out of evil; which is exactly the principle on which Plato evolves his ideal city out of the τρυφῶσα πόλις. ὅταν γίγνηται (sc. κακά) is equivalent (as J. and C. remark) to ἑκάστοτε: cf. Phaed. 68 D φόβῳ μειζόνων κακῶν ὑπομένουσιν αὐτῶν οἱ ἀνδρεῖοι τὸν θάνατον <*>ταν ὑπομένωσιν.

ὅλῳ . Herwerden's conjecture μεγάλῳ seems to shew that he connected σμικρῷ with στρατοπέδῳ, but the meaning is ‘not by a small amount, but by a whole army.’ For the datives cf. IX 579 C note

πλούτου δὲ οὐδέν and Liebhold ( Fl. Jahrb. 1888, p. 107)

κόσμου δὲ ἄλλο μὲν <ἔχοντ)> οὐδέν for τοῦτον δὲ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν. Neither of these proposals has any plausibility, and it is best to regard this as one of the places where we owe the right reading to Π .

Plato Republic 2.373

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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